Making Tax Digital for Income Tax from April 2026
Who enters MTD Income Tax first, what digital records mean and the first quarterly update dates.
01
Who must start in 2026
From 6 April 2026, MTD Income Tax applies to an individual who is registered for Self Assessment, receives self-employment or property income and had more than £50,000 of qualifying gross income from those sources on the 2024/25 return.
Limited company turnover and PAYE salary are not qualifying income for this test. HMRC may write to affected taxpayers, but checking and signing up remains the taxpayer's responsibility.
The threshold falls to more than £30,000 from April 2027 and more than £20,000 from April 2028 under current guidance.
02
The first standard update cycle
- Create and keep digital records from 6 April 2026.
- Send update 1 by 7 August 2026.
- Send update 2 by 7 November 2026.
- Send update 3 by 7 February 2027.
- Send update 4 by 7 May 2027.
- Finalise and submit the tax return by 31 January 2028.
03
Use AIS
Open Tax > MTD to check eligibility, digital-record status, HMRC connection and quarterly updates. Reconcile income and expenses before each submission, but remember that quarterly updates are summaries rather than four final tax returns.
Sources and review notes
AIS rewrote this guide for its own workflows. Crunch Help informed the software process; linked HMRC guidance is the authority for UK rules, rates and deadlines.